To chill or not to chill...

[Dan Roll]

I'll throw my two cents in (on the subject of chilled ink rollers for sheetfed). I have investigated many complaints from sheetfed printers enduring transfer problems, drying problems, color control problems, ink/water balance problems, etc all of which went away when the ink chiller was turned up or off. Having a web printing perspective I have always been shocked when I hear a sheetfed operator say they are running chill temperatures of sixty-five degrees F, and justify this by saying they run 'real fast'. A web running eighty thousand impressions an hour rarely would feel the need to run their chill temperatures much below ninety degrees F, but I have seen quite a few sheetfed operators struggling while running fifteen thousand an hour at temperatures so low the rollers sweat when the press isn't running. If you have not invested in one of these devices, save your money and spend it on better ink and paper. If you have already made the investment, do not think that in order to get your money's worth you have to run as cold as you can. The old timers (back in the 1960's) who taught me what little I remember of press operation always said the press ran better after it 'warmed up', so why spend big dollars to prevent this from ever happening?

 

[Cornishpastythighs]

I am much more interested in using my closed loop chiller system to supply me with consistent print unit temperatures as opposed to trying to 'chill' my print unit. IMHO it was well worth the investment as we seem to have more issues whenever it does not work correctly or the lines get plugged.